How To Process Plane Crashes And Other Catastrophic Events
by MaggieMerc
Summary: A series of small stories meant to occur during Season 9.
1. What's Next

Title: What's Next

Author: Maggiemerc

Rating: PG

Relationships: Callie/Derek friendship. Mark and everyone.

Spoilers: For the premiere. Takes place that evening…sometime after five o'clock.

Disclaimer: I don't own them. I'd have trouble breaking my toys so tragically.

Author's Note: I am shattered. Putting this out to make the feels less.

Summary: Five o'clock has come and gone and Derek is left wondering what to do next.

**What's Next**

Derek was accustomed to knowing exactly where he was going. He'd known he wanted to be a doctor since high school. He knew he wanted to marry Meredith all of a week after he met her. He could go into an OR and know exactly what course of action he would take.

He did not second guess himself. He did not ponder things. He moved forward relentlessly because it was the only way he knew how to exist.

When his father died Derek was given a blueprint on how to properly grieve. He had his mother and sisters as guides and Mark standing behind him at the funeral and then sneaking into his room with a stolen bottle of Jack that night. They drank until they threw up and then sat on the roof and watched the sun rise.

Derek had never twisted in the breeze. He'd had Seattle when Addison betrayed him. And he'd had his marriage when the shooting might have overwhelmed him. After Jen Harmon died and he'd been lower then he thought he could be he had Meredith.

And he had Mark.

It was only after he'd picked Zola up from the nursery and saw Sofia sitting there waiting for parents who weren't there and one who would never come that he realized he hadn't a clue what he was doing or what he should be doing.

His hand was numb. His wife was off trying to fix herself and her best friend. And his best friend was being slid into a cooler a few floors below him.

Depression. He could feel it at the fringes of his brain. He knew what was coming. The inability to get up. The lack of desire for anything. He needed…something.

Callie rounded the corner wiping her eyes and jostling her keys and startled at finding him and Zola in the hallway.

They shared a look.

They'd never been friends. They'd be tied to each other only by their love for Mark.

They didn't know much about each other beyond gossip (usually delivered by Cristina or Mark).

They had kids sure.

And they were surgeons.

But she looked at him and smiled like the world was okay and he smiled back knowing it wasn't.

The understanding was instantaneous.

"I talked to the funeral home," she said. She was trying not to cry. Derek didn't like tears. His sister would cry seeing roadkill and it made him uncomfortable—it was one of the reasons he loved Meredith. She wasn't a cryer either. "They're picking up the body tomorrow."

He nodded. He'd been Mark's friend since childhood but it was Callie that had been made his proxy. She was the one managing his estate and she was the one seeing to…Mark must have realized Derek wouldn't have had it in him to do it.

"So," her voice cracked, "I'm gonna take Sofia home." She smiled again.

But Derek knew everything unsaid. He knew about the wife who sat at home in silence. Robbins ran out of tears after the first night. She turned to stone and the world chipped away at her until she shattered. Now there were only pieces left and eyes that glared balefully at Callie.

No one talked about Robbins at work. It was easier to ignore the wrath stewing in the apartment across the street. Easier to pretend Callie was a widow and one day she'd be okay again and her wellness wouldn't be contingent on another person.

"Come home with me," he said.

Her eyes grew wide and she stumbled over a response.

"Meredith is at the airport again so Zola and I are on our own for dinner. Mark…he said Sofia likes spaghetti?"

She smiled and though she was grateful he thought he saw resignation in it. And the grief. That grief that drug them both down.

He didn't know what he was going to do, but he knew how to make spaghetti.


	2. Pink or Blue

Title: Pink or Blue

Author: Maggiemerc

Rating: PG

Relationship: Callie/Arizona

Spoilers: For the new season and the last three episodes of season eight.

Disclaimer: Don't own them. If I did it would just be them making out 24/7 and people wouldn't watch it.

Summary: There's more than just wrestling with the outcome of the finale. There's also figuring out what color polish to go with.

**Pink or Blue**

"I'm ticklish and if you don't—"

Callie had wedged herself between Arizona's legs and sat on her left leg so she could hold her right under her arms. "Stop moving and it won't tickle."

"Callie" she whined.

It had started as an offer to paint Arizona's toes. Her best friend was coming into town so Callie could make him cancer free and Arizona had gotten a little too nervous so Callie had decided to pamper her with a foot massage and new nail polish.

Then she'd trucked out the navy blue they usually used on their fingers instead of the sparkly pink Arizona used on her toes and only Callie ever got to see.

There'd been a disagreement which had turned into Callie sitting on her wife.

She ran her hand up Arizona's calf before poking at the back of Arizona's knee. "I heard this was an erogenous zone." She was going for sultry but Arizona was busy eyeing still the navy blue nail polish Callie insisted would match her skin tone. That was find for fingers but she liked sparkly and fun for her toes.

"That was something they made up for Ally McBeal," she countered grumpily.

Callie didn't agree and lightly ran her fingers across the skin.

It wasn't erogenous but it was ticklish and Arizona bucked. Her knee collided with Callie's face and her wife fell back on the bed clutching her nose.

Something between "argh" and "my nose" escaped between Callie's hands.

Arizona flipped over and crawled across the bed to her wife. She reached for her face. "I'm so sorry—" She'd felt her knee collide. It couldn't be pretty. She carefully pulled Callie's hands away from her face and found nothing but a nose slightly redder under the dark skin and freckles.

She narrowed her eyes and Callie grinned before leaping on her and wrestling until she somehow ended up sitting on Arizona's right leg with Arizona's left looped around her neck.

As her uncle said, "That'll learn her."

"I used to wrestle with boys Calliope Torres!"

Callie gasped and reached for the newly discovered ticklish back of Arizona's knee.

"Get. Your. Sleeper. Hold. Off. Me," she grunted.

"Say you'll go with the pink!"

She waited and tensed her leg to maintain her grip. Her wife seemed to relax. Seemed to settle with the idea she'd married a woman who liked pink nail polish but then she rocked to the side and they both tumbled over. She was up again and used her weight to keep Arizona down.

"How about," she kissed her gently. On the lips and then the corner of her mouth and then just beneath her ear where it always made her pulse pound, "we figure it out later."

This new plan was better than the pampering.

She tugged at the bottom of Callie's shirt. "Okay, later. Later is good."

Callie murmured in agreement but abruptly sat up between Arizona's legs. She kneaded the muscles of Arizona's thighs. "I'm more interested in these legs right now."

Arizona flexed. She didn't have ropey athlete definition but she when she flexed she could see all the muscles pretty clearly. "I work out."

"You're like a little cage fighter."

Arizona wrapped her legs around her wife and pulled her back down into another kiss. "And you love it."

"I do."

####

She covers it up when she's alone. And with Sofia in daycare and Callie working that's a lot of the time. She sits on the bed and stares at the wall and tries to put something in her head besides the blankness.

But when she thinks she goes back to the mountain or to Mark or Nick or Timothy. She goes back to the men that always seem to leave her. Or she goes back to that thing beneath the covers.

Sometimes when not thinking is to exhausting and grieving isn't enough she checks the clock to make sure she'll have enough time and she pulls the sheets back and she stares.

She wears shorts all the time because they're easy to get on and the leg doesn't hang off her stump obscenely. So it's easy to just pull back the sheets and see what she's lost.

People leave. Death happens. That's easy to grasp for Arizona. But her leg? It's a part of her. It was a part of her.

One thigh is shorter than the other, but it's thinner too. They bound it during surgery and kept it tightly wrapped for the first few weeks to shape it. She's amputated limps before and knows a good stump on sight. That team in the OR left her with a good one.

But she's avoided going to be fitted for a prosthesis and infection at the time of amputation kept her from being fitted with one on the day. So there's no muscle mass. Mark was probably fitter in a coma for a month then she is. One thigh is weak and comical looking as it twitches and moves and tries to power the rest of a leg that saw the inside of an incinerator a month ago. And one thigh flexes and bulges and leads to a knee that articulates beautifully and to a slender calf and ends at a foot that still has little specks of nail polish on it.

Callie painted her toes before Nick came and now, three months later, there's just five little chips of pink.


	3. How To Go To A Funeral

Title: How To Go To A Funeral And Not Murder The Guests

Author: Maggiemerc

Rating: PG

Characters: Arizona, Callie, not necessarily Arizona AND Callie

Spoilers: Spoilers for 9x01, "Going, Going, Gone."

Summary: When you're angry and depressed and scared and alone how do you go to a funeral. And how do you make it though the whole thing without throat punching well wishing grievers?

Author's Note: Throwing this under the tag because even though it's probably been spoiled for everyone I still don't want to be the person actually spoiling people you know?

Anyways I love the idea that Arizona is depressed and righteously angry and wanted to explore that mindset. So please don't get mad that things aren't tender and people aren't expressing love in super overt ways. This is Rage!Arizona y'all.

**How To Go To A Funeral And Not Murder The Guests**

Her wife stood in the doorway staring passive aggressively at her for two minutes. She knew because she counted. She counted because it was the only way to keep from doing something—saying something else.

Finally Callie exhaled loudly, "Fine. We're going."

She slammed the bedroom door and a few minutes later the front door slammed and Arizona stopped counting. She sighed and closed her eyes and waited. Waited for Callie to come back in and make demands. Waited for the phone to ring and her parents to be on the other end assuring her they were on their way to thump her into shape. Waited for someone to do more than walk away.

Nothing happened.

She rolled over and looked out the window. The sun was high in the sky and it was bright. She always thought it was supposed to rain during funerals and it never did. It was always sunny and gorgeous. She had no doubt that if she went outside the air would have a crisp bite to it and it be cool in the shade and warm in the sun.

The world wasn't logical and didn't move as expected. So there was no rain on the day they buried Tim. No rain the day she heard about Nick. No rain the day they put Sofia's father in the ground. Just cloudless skies and happy lives being lived off in the distance.

She wanted to skip the funeral. The idea of having Callie help her out of the car and feeling all those stupid people looking at her churned up bile in her stomach. She couldn't stand the sight of people. Anyone. She couldn't even watch TV without her misanthropic streak flaring up like a bad infection.

But she hopped her way to her closet full of pairs of shoes and skirts and dresses and pulled out black slacks and a navy blue blouse.

Because this was Mark. She'd lost two brothers and here went the third she'd found and she was damned if she was going to let every asshole in the world keep her from paying her respects.

Putting the pants on wasn't hard but the empty leg made her nauseous. She should have pinned it. That was the normal course of action. You rolled the leg up and pinned it in place. But the legs of the pants she'd chosen were blowzy and loose so she tied it in a knot that hung limply just below her stump and would probably sway with every move she made.

She skipped out on make up and settled for big sunglasses. Her hair was too filthy for to be seen even in her most miserable state so she covered it in a silk scarf that combined with the glasses no doubt made her look like some widow.

She felt like one sometimes. Sitting in her bedroom surrounded by a life she'd once lived.

Getting out of the apartment was harder than she'd expected. Her movement since coming home had been limited to two hops to the closet door and three to the bathroom. She usually didn't even need the crutches so she wasn't used to moving on them.

She'd sprained her ankle in tenth grade and been on crutches for two weeks. There was a rhythm to moving in them and a way the whole body compensated. With only one leg and not even a knee to help balance herself she kept over judging how far to swing her lower body and stumbling. Tired reflexes that had once belonged to a surgeon on Heelys kept her from outright falling, but her movement from the bedroom to the front door was awkward, embarrassing and very nearly sent her back to bed.

"Take care of our girls."

It was only his voice chiding her that kept her moving. To the garage where the parking space she shared with Callie was empty. But she had Mark's keys. Before everything he'd loaned them to her so she could buy brisket on sale. Then Nick's surgery had gone terribly and she'd forgotten and he'd told her as they boarded the plane that if she wanted his car so badly she should just buy it from him.

Getting up into his SUV required almost more upper body strength then she had and when she'd finally crawled in and sat down and got her crutches in she had to pause again.

She was always pausing. Trying to catch a breath and trying to calm down everything inside that wanted to scramble out of her.

It was worse when she shut the door and the whole car smelled like Mark.

Arizona had never even **liked** Mark. She'd tolerated him in her life and dreaded the mornings she'd find him in her kitchen and the holidays she'd find him at her table.

But him being gone hurt. It was physically painful. Like someone sitting on her chest. And she knew it was because she cared. And she knew it was because she closed her eyes and was being thrown through the air and skidding across the forest floor. And she knew that it was more then him just being gone.

But knowing why didn't change the anything.

She twisted the key and the engine turned over and though her left foot was gone her right knew exactly what to do. Gas. Brake. Gas. Brake.

It was familiarity she'd thought she'd lost.

She was late to the burial though.

A memorial was going to be held that night with lots of alcohol she couldn't drink and filled with lots of people she didn't want to see. But memorials didn't matter. Memorials were for putting on a brave face and acting like you cared and talking about happy memories like it might make things better.

The burial was where the grieving happened. Where it began and ended. And Mark's plot was filled with people who'd made their way across green grass to stand in front of a hole in the ground and watch a coffin dip beneath the earth.

She wanted to get out and make her way up the hill and stand by the wife she hated and the daughter she loved and put it all to rest. But she also wanted to point out how hypocritical they all were and how worthless. How they'd soon forget Mark like they forgot everyone who died and how they'd move on and she'd be stuck with one leg and a daughter she never could have imagined.

How dare they all stand there looking sad. They weren't there. They'd never been there.

She…she hadn't been there.

All she wanted to do was get out of the car and climb a hill.

But she couldn't do.

Images of her crutches slipping in the grass and her stump striking the ground painfully ran through her head. She could see, clearly, everyone watching. Grieving her like they did Mark. She was dead too after all. Taken in the crash as swiftly as Lexie. All that was left was a God damned shell who couldn't pin her pants and couldn't get out of the car and couldn't keep her leg.

But she could at least **try** to get out of the car and stand at the bottom of the hill right? She could make an effort.

She reached for the crutches that she'd jammed into the passenger seat. They weren't as easy to get out as they'd been going in. She tugged and one jerked free and struck her mouth.

It stung like a slap and she shoved it back with a scream and then, because there was nowhere else to go—no way to escape—she slammed her hand against the wheel. It stung like her mouth and the horn bleated loudly.

And now she could feel the stares. The people on the hill wondering who the asshole in a dead man's car was honking while they grieved. And she could feel Callie up there. The wife who couldn't save her leg but could sure as hell be embarrassed and mad up there with their daughter.

The pain in her chest was back but she knew what it was this time. She was gonna cry. It was crawling up her chest into her neck and headed straight for her eyes. Tears. She'd cried so much she thought her tear ducts had scarred over. But nope. There they were again.

God damned tears. For what?

She fell against the wheel and didn't care if it honked or if they saw her crying or judged her some more. Let them come down for their precipice and offer condolences, sad eyes and a hand. She'd beat them with that stupid crutch and show them what kind of invalid she was.

####

Someone to Callie's left started to make a move down the hill to check on Arizona. The whole damned funeral heard the honking horn and most of the people there knew the car. It was an easy leap to figure out who was inside.

She didn't know why Arizona was honking. To what? Let her know she was there and should feel guilty? Or did she just accidentally honk and was now hiding in shame?

Aaaand it was Alex, moving through the crowd. She hoped he'd look at her so she could warn him not to go. Because all he'd do was embarrass Arizona further and then get yelled at. He didn't need that.

He looked at her as he moved past. For permission. She didn't grant it and he surreptitiously fell back into the group.

Sofia, wearing the white tights she apparently hated more than life itself, was fidgeting and wanting to be carried. She didn't know why they were all standing around being somber. She knew her mama was spending her days being cranky in her room and her daddy wasn't around but she was too young to grasp the scale of devastation that had been wrought down on her little head.

Callie picked her up and placed her on her hip where she could rest her head on Callie's shoulder and make faces at Zola who was in Meredith's arms directly behind them. She'd graciously let Addison stand next to Derek in the front.

She was nicer than Callie. If Arizona had made it up the hill she would have made her stand next to her no matter what and she would have used one of her wife's crutches on anyone who tried to argue with her.

The priest, asked there on Callie's insistence, asked for someone to speak. Derek went first.

####

Callie got home first. Even though Arizona never got out of the car and never went to the memorial service at Derek and Meredith's.

She had to admit it was weird coming home. Usually the house was dark and cold and stale feeling except for the dim light peering out from beneath their bedroom door.

But the house was brightly lit and the door to their bedroom was open and though Callie knew she and Sofia were alone she felt a surge of…hope at the sight. Like maybe her wife was coming back instead of whatever the plane crash had left her with.

But the lights were on and the door was open because Arizona had apparently made a hasty exit. There was also a bra in the middle of the living room and the couch was pushed off the carpet and the week's worth of newspapers that had been on it were scattered on the floor.

"Messy," Sofia opined.

She kissed her daughter's head, "You said it."

They ate dinner and she cleaned up while Sofia played and then she put her daughter to bed and didn't cry when Sofia asked where her other parents were.

And Arizona still wasn't back. She checked her phone and there was no messages. Then she rang her wife and it went to voicemail.

####

After the funeral Arizona drove all the way to the water and stayed in the car and watched the ships roll past. She fell asleep with the car on and when she woke up she winced. Not because she was stiff. A month of bed rest had her used to the aches of immobility.

She'd missed the memorial…that she hadn't planned on going to.

And dinner. Callie always made dinner and put it on the bed and looked at her with a hang dog expression waiting for her to absolve her of her part in the farce that was her amputation.

She stopped for fast food on the way home and then had to stop again to throw up when the grease hit her stomach. She could see the lights of her apartment from the street and the nauseous feeling in her stomach remained as she noted the rooms were all brightly lit.

It didn't get much better when she got inside.

####

She actually had the gall to limp her way past Callie like she hadn't disappeared for four hours. Had the gall to freeze Callie out like it was just another day in this little play they were acting.

"No," she growled when Arizona was halfway to the bedroom and hadn't even acknowledged her. "No."

Arizona carefully turned on her crutches and stared.

"You're gone for four hours and you're just gonna waltz back in here—"

"Cute," Arizona said frigidly, "Really. Got any more puns up your sleeve Callie?"

Callie wasn't going to get into that. Not right now while she was fired up and Sofia was hopefully deep into REM sleep. "No. You don't get to play that card when you disappear for four hours and don't answer your phone."

"I'm going to bed." Arizona turned again.

But Callie caught up to her easily enough. She didn't jerk her around. That would make it worse for both of them. But she held her firmly enough that she couldn't walk away and she couldn't fall.

"You're not the only one who lives here despite what you think and you don't get to just come and go as you please."

"Actually I do Callie. I get to do whatever I want." She pulled herself out of Callie's grip and turned to face her. "I don't have a job, I don't have a leg, but I can go for a drive and eat fast food and do whatever the hell I want."

"No, you don't." She stepped close and saw how white Arizona's knuckles were as she gripped her crutches. "You asked me to marry you and I said yes." Arizona looked away. "So you gave up the right to throw away you life three years ago."

It was like Arizona had smelled something bad. She looked up sharply, "You think I'm throwing away my life," she asked accusingly.

"I think I'm done watching you try."

####

Arizona sat in her little chair and took her first shower in four days. Her hair didn't really want to come out of the bun she'd put it in and her leg was covered in hair. Even her stump needed a shave. She wasn't up to it and just sat under the water before using half a bottle of shampoo to get a lather in her hair.

She pulled on a sweatshirt and shorts and came out of the bathroom to find the sheets changed and Callie sitting on her side of the bed reading. A glass of water sat next to Arizona's side.

Callie didn't look up as Arizona hobbled over and let her crutches fall to the ground. She didn't pull back the sheets or help tuck her in or offer to get her anything.

It was…unnerving. Arizona pulled one of the pillows out from behind Callie's back and propped her stump onto it before pulling the sheets up to her chest.

Callie had slept in the bed with her a few times. But she was always in bed when Arizona was asleep and gone before she was awake. The only note of her presence was the state of her half of the bed and the indentation in the mattress.

She closed her eyes and tried to push Callie out of her head. It worked for a few minutes. She didn't yell and Callie didn't say a word.

Then the lights went out and the bed shifted as Callie got comfortable.

"Arizona."

If she kept her eyes closed maybe her wife would go away. Maybe she'd be left to her misery.

"I miss you."

Callie's words tempered the festering rage just a hair.

And when Arizona woke up in the morning her wife was still there.


	4. The Night Callie Torres Got Wasted

Title: The Night Callie Torres Got Wasted

Author: Maggiemerc

Rating: PG

Characters: Callie/Arizona, mild Alex Karev

Spoilers: For episode 9x01 and 9x02

Disclaimer: I don't own them but I sure as hell do enjoy them.

Summary: Okay, so why exactly did Callie not go to Idaho? Here's one possible reason.

**The Night Callie Torres Got Wasted**

They'd been missing for four days. Someone had explained to them as they gathered in a room that the longer they were missing the less likely it was they would live.

She didn't know where the four day deadline came from. Someone mentioned it or she read it in a book it or it was some vestigial bit of knowledge from her time in the Peace Corps but after four days the chance of recovery dropped drastically.

Which meant her wife was dead. And Mark. And Cristina. And Lexie and Meredith and Derek. They were gone and she was left a single mom.

She pushed through work that day knowing what it meant. And she smiled and acted like she wasn't falling apart on the inside. Bailey found her charting and told her if she didn't get the hell out of the hospital and stop trying to work that Bailey would forcibly remove her.

So she picked Sofia up from daycare and avoided looking at Zola and she and her daughter bought a lot of take out and a lot of wine.

A lot of wine.

After Sofia was bathed and in bed Callie tried to sit on the couch and drink.

But the couch got warm or she did so she moved to her room.

But it smelled like Arizona.

So she put a cork in her wine bottle and stuck it and another under her arm, grabbed Sofia's baby monitor and climbed to the roof.

It was a gorgeous view of downtown Seattle. Lights twinkled and the sky was clear and she could see people coming and going from the hospital.

And she drank.

And she drank some more.

And then she pulled her phone out to see if she had any messages and there were none so she called Owen and he said he didn't know anything yet and asked if he should come by.

And maybe she told him to go to hell.

And maybe she cried.

And maybe she flung her phone off the roof in frustration and curled up against the roof's wall and cried some more.

And sobbed.

And wept so hard her chest got sore.

And she missed her wife.

God she missed her wife.

####

She woke up cold and with a mouth that tasted like really pungent garlic and bad wine. Dawn had to be coming soon because a light dew had fallen and her shirt was soaked through.

Shit.

Sofia.

She snatched up the monitor and raced downstairs to find Alex Karev standing in her apartment looking worried and confused and relieved all at once.

"Sofia's sleeping but you weren't answering and I…"

There weren't a lot of reasons he'd be standing there. But his reasons were white noise in her ears because there was really only one reason he was there and it sent her to her knees.

They'd found them and Alex Karev had come to deliver the news.

Maybe it was the two bottles of wine but she started crying again. She didn't even have the tears in her any more. It was more dry heaves that she was sure was going to push her dinner up.

Karev shuffled and knelt next to her. "Dude," he said.

"Just…tell…me," she gasped.

He squeezed her arms until she was forced to look up.

But he wasn't scared. He was pulling a smile out of somewhere deep down and it twisted his lips upward. "She's alive Torres."

She hiccuped.

"Hunt, Bailey and Webber are on their way to Idaho to assess."

Callie scrambled up Karev's body and dashed towards her bedroom. "When do they leave? Do I have time to pack?"

"They're already gone," he called from the living room.

She stopped her hunt for a bag for Arizona and came back to the door.

Karev shrugged, "We tried calling you. I came over after they left to make sure you were okay."

"But…Karev I have to be there. Arizona is…and Mark!"

"Dude," he came closer and peered at her like they were in the Pit and she was a patient, "are you drunk?"

She stepped back—and smacked into the door frame.

"You're wife doesn't need you puking on her because you drank too much wine."

"I know what my wife needs," she growled in a frustrated rush. "She needs me. There. I'll just—can you charter a plane at three in the morning? Because I can just charter a plane and then I can be there and—"

He grabbed her arm. "Or you can go get some sleep and get your head together and be ready and sober when your wife calls you in the next few hours."

She blanched. Her phone was destroyed, probably. Could phones survive being thrown off buildings? How was Arizona supposed to call her?

Karev stuck a phone in her face, "I got my phone too. Owen's gonna call me from it when he gets there. Okay?"

She nodded numbly.

Karev sighed, "Good. So can you go sleep now?"

"No." She sucked in a shaky breath. "Not…not until I see her Alex." Callie pushed past him and collapsed onto the couch. "I'll just…I'll wait."

He sighed and sat down next to her.

####

"I need…to call…my wife."

It was hard catching her breath to speak. She'd broken three ribs and had a pulmonary laceration that made every movement impossible without pain. They'd given her a chest tube and had her on oxygen to help and to hopefully keep her out of surgery.

For her chest at least. Her leg would require multiple surgeries—none of which she wanted done by the idiots around her.

Owen took a seat next to her bed. "We're going to be transporting you all soon."

"I don't…care." She'd tried to call Callie earlier but it had gone straight to voicemail.

Owen pulled his own phone out and made a call. "Did you find her," he asked someone. He nodded—forgetting that whoever they were they couldn't see him. Then he smiled at something and handed the phone over.

"Arizona?"

She burst into tears. She couldn't help it. As soon as she heard Callie's warm voice the dam shattered. Owen stepped back and discreetly closed the curtains around her bed.

"Hi," she cried.

"Hi," Callie whispered back. She didn't say anything else, but she could hear her breathing. Gasping. Crying. It was just enough to be linked this way. To hear her breath on the phone and know that she'd see her.

"We have…to fly…and Bailey is going to…sedate us."

"I know. I know. I'll be at the airport. Okay?"

"O…kay." She sank back into her pillows in an attempt to find relief. "How's…Sofia?"

Callie laughed through her tears, "She's fine sweetheart. She's fine. I…your plane doesn't leave for four hours. I can…I'm gonna get on a plane and be there Arizona. I can come back with—"

"No. Please." She knew Meredith kept hearing the plane crash. In the forest she'd mentioned it in a daze. Asked if anyone else heard it. Arizona didn't hear the plane crash. She wasn't sucked back in time and trapped in a nightmare over and over again. But she remembered it. Clearly. And her mind put Callie on the plane with her and she couldn't fathom that. Couldn't fathom what would happen. "Just…I'll see you…at the airport."

"I love you. Okay? I love you—" Callie was a broken record. Repeating the words like she'd never get to say them again and Arizona tried not to sob at the sound, but tears raced down her cheeks and soaked the front of her gown anyways.

"I love you too," she said softly.

"I'll be on the tarmac. I'll be there okay? And we'll fix your leg and you'll walk and we'll be okay. Okay?"

####

She rode in one of the five ambulances that arrived at the airport. A sixth vehicle came with them. For the body. For Lexie.

Karev rode in another ambulance. And Jackson and April came as well. But Callie was the first one out and she ignored some airport official to run to the opening door at the rear of the plane. Bailey tried to catch her as she run up the ramp but she only squeezed her shoulder and kept running.

Past Mark who was still completely out of it.

And to Arizona. Who had always claimed her metabolism processed most sedatives to quickly. It was true. She was groggy and watched Callie with glazed and hooded eyes.

She was so bruised. Dirty. Like death reanimated.

Callie ground to a halt in front of her then knelt. Behind her the others were climbing into the plane. Bailey was debriefing them and explaining how the patients would be transported.

Callie quickly undid the straps holding her wife in place and pulled her hand out from beneath her blanket. She pressed her lips to the cool hand and stroked the least blemished part of Arizona's face.

"You found me," Arizona murmured painfully.

"Always," Callie whispered.

And she resolved at that very moment, that she would never ever ever ever give up again. Because her wife was a superhero who could come back from the dead and the least Callie could do was have faith that she always would.


	5. Phantom Pain, Phantom Wife

Title: Phantom Pain, Phantom Wife

Author: Maggiemerc

Rating: M

Characters: Callie/Arizona

Spoilers: A knowledge of the first two episodes of season nine are a must.

Disclaimer: I do not own them but I do try to make them just as miserable as canon.

Summary: Arizona wakes up post surgery and Callie reflects on the decision she made while working on Derek's hand.

Author's Note: This whole series is meant to be the missing parts of episodes. So there's not going to be fluff unless there's fluff on the show. Which means after an excruciatingly dark episode there will be dark chapters, like this one!

Clearly this is not normal awesome Arizona. Clearly this is awful and angry and waking up from surgery Arizona. **This may be upsetting or triggering for some people so please read at your own risk.**

This is also quite **graphic**, because these are smart doctors who know all this and who have themselves performed amputations. So if you're queasy I'd skip it. It's not quite "wolves eating Lexie" but it is REALLY close.

**Phantom Pain, Phantom Wife**

Patients who underwent amputation were always angry if it took them from ambulatory to working on being ambulatory. Little kids handled the change significantly better—often because what they had before weren't quite limbs. An amputation **made** them ambulatory.

But some people, before the amputation, were in constant pain. When the moment finally came they expressed relief—and even gratitude to their doctors. It was a moment of hope.

She'd been in constant pain for two months. She couldn't get out of bed and had been stuck first on a catheter and then with a bed pan that nurses she used to flirt with would empty while avoiding eye contact. She only slept when Callie took up the chair beside her bed and held her hand—and even then it was restless sleep.

She was trapped. She couldn't rest on her side. Couldn't get in a chair and wheel around the hospital. All she could do was lie inert and wait for the infection to heal and the pain to go away.

One day Alex came with greasy hawaiian pizza and an apology and she stared at him as she tried to will the ill feeling consuming her away.

Then she woke up.

She woke up with Callie watching her.

And she woke up with her leg hurting more than it ever had before in her life. Like someone was trying to twist it off at the site of the break but only after they'd peeled all the skin off and plucked out her toe nails.

Callie was still watching her. Failing her. Failing to find words.

She looked down and this funny little lump of flesh moved when she tried to tilt her leg. It wasn't even half as long as her leg should be and moving turned the whole limb on fire.

The whole limb that was no longer there.

Callie was holding her hand and trying to say something. Trying to explain how she'd failed Arizona. How she'd ignored Arizona's one request. How she'd taken everything from her.

"Get out," she said over the blather. She couldn't find many words. Couldn't find many thoughts. Could only feel the anger and the pain. But she still managed to infuse her words with venom. "I said get out."

Callie was still watching her. Pitying her. Like she had the right? Like she could say **anything**? She wanted to. The way her mouth hung open limply. Worked worthlessly to find something to say.

"I swear to God if you don't get out of this room Callie—"

Her mouth snapped shut and she squared her jaw like the protector she'd promised to be. "I'm not leaving you."

Too late.

"You left me the moment you cut off my leg."

The words didn't wound Callie nearly enough. Yes, she stepped back. Yes ,she looked shocked. But how could she possibly hurt as badly as Arizona?

"Now," she growled through a clenched jaw.

So Callie left. Abandoned her.

She fell back against her pillow, not even realizing she'd been sitting up. Tears tugged at her chest but nothing came out at first. The pain was too immense to even be vocalized. Her mouth hung open mutely.

She glanced back down again. Hoping the dream was over and the pain was in her leg.

But it wasn't. It was all just phantom pain. For a leg lost. For a life lost.

####

Callie was shaking but she couldn't let anyone see it. And she couldn't let them into Arizona's room. She shut the door—having made sure the shades were shut as soon as she'd gotten there. It was the only privacy she could salvage for her wife.

She sat in front of the door with her butt on cold tile and her ear pressed against the wood and she closed her eyes and prayed that the hysterical sobbing she now heard filter through the door would disappear.

That she'd close her eyes and it would all be back to normal. That Mark would wake up and Arizona would be her wife again and not the miserable creature who might have killed her just now.

Squeaking sneakers nearby forced her to crack her eyes open. But it was just Alex, who took a seat opposite her and said nothing.

They were in this one thing together. Married by the violent act they'd committed against the woman she loved.

She'd ordered it like some despot. Demanding he take her leg. And he'd done it. Butchered her wife's body and soul so that she might live. Cut off a piece of her and conferred it to an incinerator that would turn infection and flesh and bone and that mole behind her knee to ash.

That was the worst. She'd been buried in Derek's hand and she'd focused on it so fully. Given herself over to his case in the hopes it would eradicate the procedure being performed on her wife from her mind.

But Callie was an orthopedic surgeon. She'd been doing amputations as soon as she'd had a scalpel and she knew every cut. Every slice. So when she stepped out of surgery she threw up. Not over nerves for Derek's hand. But because she kept seeing her wife's severed leg wrapped up and thrown into a bin for biohazardous waste.

It wasn't "the leg" that she needed it to be. It was her wife's leg. One she'd kissed and caressed and stroked. One she'd fought so fucking hard to save. One she'd lost.

And with it she'd lost the woman she loved. Now there was just a ghost sobbing on the other side of the wall.


	6. People Fight

Title: People Fight

Author: Maggiemerc

Rating: M

Characters: Callie/Arizona

Spoilers: Season Nine through Episode Three.

Disclaimer: I do not own them but I do try to make them just as miserable as canon.

Summary: Post-shower Arizona stews and waits.

**People Fight**

She kept smelling it. Lying in bed and staring at the ceiling and trying to just forget the whole damned day and the ammonia whiff of urine still stank in her nose.

She'd shift in bed and smell it. She'd drink her water and smell it. She knew it was in her head. She'd bathed and Callie had thrown the clothes into a trash bag and taken them with her on her way to the meeting.

She'd cleaned up the puddle in the bathroom too.

So Arizona knew it was in her head.

But she couldn't stop thinking about it.

It was less a memory and more a physical object in her head. One she'd twist and turn and look at from every angle. If she'd gotten up sooner. If she'd skipped the second glass of water. If she hadn't fallen between her chair and the bedroom. And her stupid pants with the stupid worthless zipper that couldn't work with her shaking hands. Hands that were surgeon's hands and saved **babies** but couldn't undo a zipper. Couldn't stop to torrent of humiliation.

And then Callie had come home and she'd had the audacity to sound scared. And she looked at Arizona and she frickin' **pitied** her.

She hated those looks. The pitying ones. It was why she never left the house. It was why she never told people about her brother. She hated—**hated**—when someone looked at her like she was less than capable. Like she couldn't handle some infinitesimal crisis the world directed her way.

And her own wife dared to do it after cutting off her leg.

And then she dragged her into the shower and cried and—no. No.

She couldn't think about Callie. Couldn't think about what she was going through. Couldn't think about the best friend they'd buried and the promising resident crushed under a plane and eaten by animals.

There was this outer circle in her mind. The larger scheme of what happened to her and what she'd lost and she couldn't look at it. She could see it as clearly as she saw herself. Saw the things that had happened and the things she had lost and she had to turn away from it and think about sitting in her own urine on the bathroom floor waiting for her wife to come home and see that mess that **she** had made.

So she went back to the little circle. The one that was just her being too worthless to stand up. People stood up. People could do that. They could run on manufactured legs and be Olympians and ride bikes and use stairs. People could fight infections too. People could stay awake in the woods when the growling beasts came out and could protect the ones they loved. People could make it to the bathroom in time. People could fight. They could force their wives away and they could think about settling or not settling lawsuits that hadn't even begun.

People could feel more each day than the crushing sense of worthlessness.

Too worthless to even make it to the bathroom in time.

The front door slammed shut. Keys and purse were dropped and Callie was back in the bedroom door sooner than expected.

Callie took a deep breath then said, "We're not accepting the settlement."

She wasn't looking at Callie. It was easier to look past her, but for just a moment her eyes flickered to the wife that had abandoned her.

"We have a chance to make sure this doesn't happen to someone else and we're taking it."

People fought.

Callie didn't move from the doorway. She did that a lot. Stared at Arizona like she hoped Arizona would stare back and suddenly some spark would kindle and they'd be the people they'd been before. They'd be alive.

Finally she sighed and turned on her heel.

It was easier to talk to Callie when her back was turned. She wasn't reminded of the woman she loved. She was just a silhouette in the door. A phantom of all that was lost.

"Good," Arizona said.


	7. A Peaceful Conversation

Title: A Peaceful Conversation

Author: Maggiemerc

Rating: PG

Characters: Callie/Arizona

Spoilers: Season Nine through Episode Four.

Disclaimer: I do not own them but I do try to make them just as miserable as canon.

Summary: Callie and Arizona find a modicum of peace sitting on the couch watching reality tv.

**A Peaceful Conversation**

It was something tiny. And it blossomed. Growing second by second. Forming into something Callie had half expected to be lost forever.

A conversation.

"That custard looks disgusting," Arizona said. Her nose wrinkled like it always did at the sight of something gross and not medically related.

"I can't believe she's using roe in it."

"I don't think she's nearly Japanese to pull that off."

They both winced as the fishy custard was plated.

Arizona's disgusted face turned to a thoughtful frown. "Why do they even try savory custards? Who sits down and says, 'You know what? I want a custard that tastes like fish eggs.' Couldn't they just stick with sweet and be done with it?"

"Or something less sweet. Like pumpkin."

"Right. Or yam. A sweet potato can really go either way."

"**And** the judge is sniffing it."

"And the judge is about to vomit."

"And the judge is—commercial break. Always at the best part!"

Neither woman spoke. Callie's heart started beating fast. Something like panic scurried through her. She prepared herself. Prepared herself for a swift shift into anger from Arizona. Or sullen silence.

Carefully she looked over at her wife. She was leaning on the couch arm with her foot up on the cushion watching the commercials. The blanket covered her legs and if Callie looked quick enough she couldn't even notice the residual limb. It was a trick of the fabric and lighting. Arizona twisted a little and the illusion disappeared.

She glanced again up at her face to see if she'd been caught staring. Arizona still stared at the television, her lips pursed in thought and her bangs brushed a little roguishly in front of her face. She was like marble over there. Cold. Passionless. Hauntingly beautiful.

Callie turned away before Arizona could notice the lingering gaze. Or before urges she was doing her damnedest to sequester flared up again.

"Karev came by today."

That got her glancing over so fast she nearly gave herself whiplash. The urge to preemptively defend herself rose.

But Arizona continued, "He asked when I'd be back."

There wasn't any anger. For the first time in a long time there was no accusation in her words. They were just gentle. Soft. Fragile.

As fragile as the shaky breath Arizona took. "David says my socket should be here soon. Then we can work on walking."

She had to be perfectly still. Had to tell her heart to stop beating so loudly or Arizona would hear it. Had to be like a statue or the spell cast might shatter.

"I could be back to work in a few months."

She couldn't say anything. Words opened her up to her wife's ire faster than silence. She'd learned that since the surgery. So they went back to watching the show in silence.

When it ended she started to stand and found Arizona still beside her. Asleep. She never saw her sleeping anymore. Arizona was awake in the morning when she came in and at night when she left. Truth be told she couldn't remember seeing her wife sleep at all since the amputation. Like she didn't trust Callie enough to close her eyes around her.

Because the last time she had she'd woken up without a leg.

Afforded an opportunity she hadn't had in so long Callie quietly knelt and studied her wife's face. She was surprised to find her own irritation and anger drifted away at the sight of her sleeping wife.

She'd grown exhausted over the last month. There was only so much blame she could shoulder. So many nights of painful silence and mute accusations she could face. Half the time she found herself wanting to give in. To take Sofia and leave Arizona to her misery.

She'd never tell anyone that. It was a desire late at night alone in a bed that wasn't her own that smelled of a friend she'd lost and only served to remind her of the wife she'd lost as well.

And really, it didn't even smell like Mark anymore. She'd washed the sheets and dealt with all his clothes and now it smelled more like her own home. She'd wake up in the night reaching out for the warmth of a wife that wasn't there and her eyes would open and she'd see Mark's apartment.

She didn't cry though. There weren't any tears left. There was only her new life as a celibate caregiver to a woman who hated her and a daughter too confused by events to know what she should be doing beyond crying in the darkness.

But there she was looking at a sleeping Arizona. Her face was slack and gentle. The unconscious frown on her lips would likely be permanent but the constant furrow in her brow disappeared in sleep.

She was struck by the urge to kiss her. Or at the very least reach out and stroke her cheek. Her fingers itched with the desire. But Arizona's eyes would open. All the anger and hurt would come rushing back and this little moment of reprieve would disappear behind a storm of wrath and despair Callie couldn't deal with so late at night.

So she kicked her boots off and took the other side of the couch. Slipped her feet deep into the cushions behind Arizona's back and hugging the throw pillow to her chest.

It wasn't the same as holding her wife and watching her sleep. But it wasn't sleeping in a dead man's bedroom and dreaming nightmares all too real. The warmth of Arizona along her legs. The familiarity of the couch, and her own home. It was, for a night, peace.


	8. The Dinner Guest

Title: The Dinner Guest

Author: Maggiemerc

Rating: PG-13

Characters: Callie/Arizona

Spoilers: Season Nine through Episode Four.

Disclaimer: I do not own them but I do try to make them just as miserable as canon.

Summary: Zola stays for dinner and Callie has to explain it to Arizona.

Author's Note: I meant to get this up last week but liiiiife. So here is my 9x05 post episode a week late. Sorry!

**The Dinner Guest**

Baby steps. Like her daughter Arizona's life was now comprised of baby steps. Careful explorations of an unfamiliar world. They both stumbled. They both fell. They both cried. The only difference was Callie would swoop in and pick their daughter up and wipe away her tears. She never even saw Arizona shed hers.

Not if Arizona could help it.

Callie had unofficially moved back into their apartment. Move maybe being too drastic a word. She'd never entirely left. Her things had all stayed in their apartment. Their daughter was in their apartment. It was just Callie herself. Bathing. Sleeping. Living across the hall.

It never bothered Arizona. Seeing her wife churned up a vicious bile of hatred that scared her in the quiet moments and fueled her in the loud ones.

She trusted Callie to keep her safe and have faith in her and Callie had faltered. Costing Arizona everything. But now…Callie used to run. She used to get angry back. She'd shout or set her jaw squarely and slam the door on the life they'd had and leave Arizona all alone.

Now Callie stayed. Quiet. Resigned. Mute. The two of them had become ghosts haunting their apartment. Speaking in fragments. They never looked at each other. Never even touched except when Callie would help her into the shower or to the toilet. Then it was clinical. Cold and officious hands on her body. She could close her eyes and be back in the hospital. Close her eyes and for a second have a wife who didn't see her at her worst and who still saw her as some enigmatic superhero—swooping in to love her forever.

A knock at the door dragged Arizona out of her circuitous thoughts and she grabbed her crutches to limp into the living room where Sofia sat in front of the television with blocks and something steamed on the stove. Callie closed the door she'd barely even opened and revealed her package, Zola.

She looked at the girl, apparently mildly cranky and hungry, and then at her wife.

"Meredith needs to stay with a patient tonight and Derek's out of town so…we've got Zola."

She raised her eyebrow, though she was unsure exactly why. Because her wife had agreed to babysit the daughter of two people she usually would only dare to call acquaintance? Or because she'd said "we"?

She set the girl down next to Sofia and both girls visibly brightened at the sight of their favorite playmate and fell into the odd pseudo-language they used when they were together.

Callie seemed to miss Arizona's enchantment with the two girls, who were carefully building a tower with the blocks and engaging in more sharing than was normal for kids their age.

"I'll let you know when dinner's ready," she said.

That snapped Arizona's attention back to her wife. She stupidly motioned at the couch, "I was gonna, uh, sit in here if it's okay?" It was lonely all alone in the bedroom and company that couldn't really talk or stare at her in pity and shock was refreshing.

Callie blinked, surprised. "Uh sure." Her voice rose a little and Arizona winced internally. That was Callie's hopeful tone. She'd give Arizona a look filled with longing and love and awe and Arizona would have to look away.

She couldn't handle seeing that. Part of her desperately wanted to, but seeing a wife that loved her and was still there chewed up her insides—masticating them between big, blunt teeth.

She ducked her head to make it easier and took a seat on the couch, leaning her crutches agains the arm and tucking her foot up underneath herself.

She spent most of the next fifteen minutes staring at the girls, but every once in a while she'd make a furtive glance in Callie's direction. Her wife was at home in the kitchen where food and chemistry married in something easy and fruitful. Her hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail and there was a dirty dishcloth stuck in the waist of her jeans that she'd periodically wipe her hands on between dicing and breading and saucing—was saucing even a word?

Saucing. It sounded like one. You could turn it into a verb right? To make a sauce. There was a saucier. The person who made it. And the sauce itself. So saucing had to exist too.

She'd look it up later.

Callie paused in the midst of her saucing to stare into the space directly over Arizona's head. Which meant Arizona should have looked away, but she never afforded herself the opportunity of actually watching her wife without being watched. Not since the amputation. So she continued to stare. If Callie would catch her eye she'd go blank and hope it had looked like she was staring into space too.

These little moments of domesticity, more and more common since the night they'd fallen asleep on the couch together watching a baking show, were wearing on her. Forcing her to miss more that just a leg and a life. She missed her wife. Missed the soft smiles and the gentle way she'd guide her by the elbow or caress her hand with her thumb.

But she really missed the way they'd talk. They could curl up on the couch or in bed and just talk about everything and find comfort through osmosis. What was worse was that as badly as she needed to touch her wife another part of her was still repulsed by the woman.

Loving and hating her all at once was almost as exhausting as walking on her prosthetic.

"Callie," her wife's snapped into focus, "where are they supposed to eat?"

Her dark eyes roamed over Arizona's face become she blinked and turned to study their daughter and Zola. "Right. Um. There's still a chair over at Mark's. I'll go—I'll go get it."

She threw her dish towel onto the counter and darted out of the room leaving Arizona alone with two very young girls.

Okay, saucing **had** to be a word. She'd try to ask Callie, without sounding conversational, later.

####

Why did they never buy a nice dining room table? Just because Mark bought one didn't mean Arizona and Callie should have skimped. Arizona had suggested it once during the pregnancy and Callie had dismissed her outright because she could be a selfish and terrible human being.

Hey. Stop that. You're awesome.

Her wife hated her yet it was still her voice in Callie's head building her up when she was depressed. She sighed and leaned her forehead against the cool metal of Mark's front door.

She hated his apartment. **Hated** it. She hated getting off the elevator and seeing the stillness that the door seemed to wear like a cloak. She hated walking in there and smelling Mark and finding, always finding, little things still left behind.

After Arizona had shown a little crack in her resolve to hate Callie forever she'd moved back home. Sleeping on the couch and suffering eternal neck and back pain because of it, but she didn't care. It was sleeping at Mark's where the loss was more pronounced in the quiet. At home her wife was just beyond one door and her daughter another.

A door similar to the one she leaned against. She took the same fortifying breath she always did stepping into Mark's apartment and pushed it open.

The living room was cold. Empty. Dead. She shuddered but resisted the urge to turn a light on, navigating only by the moonlight filtering in from the windows. She needed to clean his apartment out. Finally empty it and liquidate everything and roll the money into Sofia's trust. But lately she'd been barely able to stay afloat, let alone go through the process of sorting and getting rid of her best friend's things.

Her hand settled on the high chair and she pulled it out of the room, its legs dragging loudly on the hardwood. The longer she was in Mark's apartment in the dark the more a tremble of fear shot through her until she was practically running, the chair clutched in her hand.

Out again in the hallway she paused for a breath. That had been…that had been new. She'd never run from his apartment before, or felt the discomfort of the place so acutely.

God she missed him.

Then she walked back into her own apartment. It was brightly lit and warm. Sofia and Zola were giggling and filling the space with happy chatter. Food sizzled loudly on the stove.

And Arizona.

Arizona was standing the kitchen draining the rice and schooling her face into her cranky and quiet mask. The one that said she was thinking about something, probably frivolous, but didn't want to be bothered talking.

She looked up, the mask turning into a frown. "Is saucing a word?"

Callie missed Mark a little less in that moment.


	9. Nerves

Title: Nerves

Author: Maggiemerc

Rating: PG

Characters: Callie/Arizona

Spoilers: Season Nine through Episode Seven.

Disclaimer: I do not own them but I do try to make them just as miserable as canon.

Summary: Arizona helps Callie prepare for her big presentation.

Author's Note: If you're wondering what prompted the change that'll be addressed in the next fic. So just enjoy for now damn it!

**Nerves**

Arizona patted the empty cushion next to her and flashed Callie a big smile. A suspiciously big smile. The sort that would have been normal four months ago but now was as rare as…joy.

When did Callie get so maudlin?

"Come on," Arizona urged, "I want to hear this big presentation."

Arizona absolutely did not want to hear Callie's big presentation. Only—Callie thought back over the last week and a half. Her wife **had** seemed a little more active lately. Like the depressing cloud she'd been living in since the accident had lifted just a little since she'd gone to the hospital to help Bailey. She wasn't sunshine and rainbows—at least not around Callie—but she was better.

"Really?"

Arizona nodded, sticking her tongue out and sort of biting it in that adorable way she always did when she was being sincere. "Really."

Callie wasn't sure what was scarier. Delivering this nerve graft pitch to the most famous neurosurgeon on the West Coast or delivering it to the wife who hadn't genuinely smiled at her in what felt like eons.

'Don't screw this up,' head-Callie warned her. Like she needed that kind of pressure. Stupid head.

She took up residence on the empty cushion and flipped her computer open, settling it on her knees and positioning it so that if she leaned in close to Arizona they could both see it.

"There's PowerPoint," Arizona asked her in surprise.

Callie was a little hurt her wife would expect anything less from her. Didn't she know Callie?

"Because I was seriously expecting some sort of professionally produced video. Possibly with an orchestral score."

"I did that once and it was for a travel guide to Spain for your parents." The Colonel kind of intimidated her and he'd asked for help for the trip and maybe just maybe she went overboard to impress in the hopes he'd never ever ever again mention her "liaison with the sperm donor."

Arizona playfully nudged her shoulder. "Come on PowerPoint girl. Wow me."

Callie rushed through her pitch. Probably too fast. Definitely too fast. She kept glancing over at Arizona and seeing that thoughtful expression on her face she always got when intrigued by medical mystery. It was distracting.

Arizona reached out and grabbed her wildly gesticulating hand. The pads of her fingers were warm and foreign on Callie's wrist. She wondered if Arizona could feel her pulse. It had to be racing. It definitely positively had to be racing. She could probably even see the vein in her neck throbbing.

She swallowed to cover it up. But it didn't work because that thumb that used to do crazy things to her insides was rubbing a soothing pattern on the inside of Callie's wrist.

"Okay," Arizona said softly, "take a breath." She joined Callie, sucking in a deep breath and exhaling slowly. "Good. Now. Slowly explain it again."

"I went too fast?" It came out like a squeak.

Arizona's lips curved upwards. Damn it. Why did she have to be sitting so close and smelling like her wife and looking like her wife and freakin' touching her? Didn't she know that Callie hadn't had intimate contact with anything but a showerhead in nearly four months? Did she know that Callie was crazy about her and all this happiness and liberal touching was setting Callie up for what would eventually be a massive fall?

"Not too fast." Oh, those perfect pink lips were moving—talking. "But I'm your wife and kind of used to it. Instead pretend I'm Derek."

She raised an eyebrow.

"With significantly blonder and better hair, two working hands and only one foot."

Callie stopped breathing. She had to when Arizona mentioned the leg. Because leg mentions turned into tears and anger at some point. Every time. Always. And when it was said flippantly like that? Well, then that meant the anger would wash over them all the faster.

But Arizona just squeezed her wrist again and nodded at her to proceed.

So she did. Another deep breath first. "Okay, **Derek**, first I'd like to tell you that your hair has never looked better." Arizona gave her a girlish little flip of the hair. It emboldened Callie. "And your boobs are especially perky today."

"Thanks," Arizona said in a startlingly deep voice, "Meredith's been on me to work out the pecs."

Callie laughed.

"So, **Doctor** Torres. Tell me about this groundbreaking surgery that's had you up at three in the morning consulting with doctors in Switzerland."

Oops. She heard those calls? Callie had thought she'd been quiet. She'd tried to be quiet. She'd even thought about going to Mark's to handle the calls but that wouldn't have worked. That was Mark's place and he was gone and the sooner she stopped using his empty home as a crutch the better.

"Well, Dr. Shepherd," she replied her voice equally deep (something that earned a raised eyebrow from her wife), "we're only going to use one branch." She went into her spiel again. A little slower.

Okay. A lot slower.

Arizona was distracting her again. She'd flipped Callie's arm over and was idly running her thumb up and down Callie's forearm, tracing the path of the nerves they were discussing and really only barely listening. Which was good because Callie was using a lot of "ums" instead of words.

"So. This nerve?" Arizona's voice was back to normal. Not normal of late but normal normal. Soft and intimate and just for Callie.

"Yeah," she croaked.

Arizona's fingertips were like hot coals as they trailed down her arm. Her brow furrowed—just a tiny bit—as she explored Callie's fingers. Callie closed her eyes and simply reveled in the sensation. Arizona used to always play with Callie's hands in bed. They'd often slept spooning and Arizona would take the hand around her waist and hold it up to her face for closer inspection. She'd gently kiss each fingertip and tug on each finger before tucking Callie's hand between her breasts and saying good night. Callie would then curl in even closer and drop a kiss on Arizona's ear and whisper, "Sleep tight." And then Arizona would maybe laugh and sometimes she'd go straight to sleep and other times she'd guide that hand elsewhere and ever once in a while she'd twist in Callie's embrace and kiss her slowly and languidly and it'd be perfect.

She was perfect.

God she missed her wife.

"Callie?" She opened her eyes. Arizona was somehow closer. Oblivious to her affect on Callie. "Show me?" Her voice was high. Young. Like an eager intern. And her arm was held out to Callie. Not thrust in Callie's face, but just resting on Callie's thigh. Scorching her.

"Right." She swallowed but there was nothing in her mouth but dryness. She put the open laptop on the floor and settled Arizona's outstretched arm in her lap. Her hand started up at Arizona's shoulder. She forbid it to go further in. Near her chest. Or her face. The arm was much safer.

"So it starts here," and her thumb pressed into the soft shirt Arizona was wearing and moved slowly down. She paused at the elbow. There was just skin below that. "And the first incision would be here." She lightly marked it with her thumbnail.

Arizona scooted closer. Probably to just see better.

"To harvest."

"Exactly." Then her thumb was grazing the skin of Arizona's arm and brushing over the finest of blond hairs. She hazarded a glance up. It was a mistake. Arizona's eyes were dark. Her lips were moist. Her mouth was hung open just the tiniest bit. Her tongue darted out to and ran across that narrow top lip.

Breathe through your nose Callie. That'll help.

That didn't help at all.

"The second incision will be here." She used the tip of her middle finger. Like if she had less contact it would help.

Arizona was so close now her leg brushed up against Callie's. The one leg she never ever let Callie touch. Or ever look at really. She ducked down to get a closer look at the part of her arm Callie had "marked." Then she looked up through a curtain of golden hair.

And smiled.

And not just a polite smile.

A real. Honest to God. Arizona smile.

"You're gonna knock his socks off."

Callie couldn't quite smile back. She still wasn't sure it wasn't all a dream. Some perfect dream where Arizona didn't blame her and hate her. Where it was really the wife she'd lost sitting there.

And if it was a dream than she could kiss her.

She leaned down. She saw hesitation. The surprise. Arizona's eyes widened and they focused very purposely on Callie's mouth but she didn't pull back. She stayed perfectly still.

So it had to be a dream.

But to be safe Callie paused. Someone had had wine. Someone's breath was hot. How did Arizona have such tiny pores? And when did she pluck her eyebrows? Callie hadn't seen her do anything more than wash her hair in months.

Her eyes fell closed as she crossed that last little bit of space. If it was a dream it would feel perfect. If it wasn't she wouldn't have to risk seeing Arizona flinch or pull away or watch her face turn stony.

Then there were just lips on her lips. They didn't mould to hers like they used to. No one's tongue slipped into anyone's mouth. Neither of them inhaled sharply through the nose or pushed or pulled. Just lips pressed against lips. An action that was totally normal and completely new.

And Callie kept her eyes closed. It was enough just to savor that gentlest of pressures. It was sweet. Delicate. As perfect as the wife she missed.

With her eyes closed and her whole body frozen in place she had no idea who pulled away. But Arizona's nose nuzzled her own.

"I guess I should get to bed," she said. Callie could feel her lips move against the corner of her mouth.

God, she wanted to cry.

"Big day," Callie managed. She still couldn't open her eyes. Couldn't risk waking up.

But a hand cupped her cheek and then she had to. Arizona was closer than she'd ever been in her life and smiling sadly. As much as it hurt to see Arizona look so bittersweet her proximity made everything better.

"Tomorrow," Arizona intoned.

"Tomorrow."


	10. Filling the Hole

Title: Filling the Hole

Author: Maggiemerc

Rating: PG

Characters: Callie/Arizona

Spoilers: Season Nine through Episode Seven.

Disclaimer: I do not own them but I do try to make them just as miserable as canon.

Summary: Arizona falls and gets right back up.

Author's Note: A sort of sequel to the last post ep fic, Nerves.

**Filling the Hole**

She'd let Callie kiss her the night before.

She'd been excited about her first day back and nervous and had tried to channel it into helping Callie, who seemed even more excited and nervous over her presentation. And she'd flirted and then…

Callie had kissed her.

The memory of her lips set firmly against Arizona's clung to her all night. Kept her from sleeping. So when she finally did sleep she slept longer than necessary. Came in late. On her first day back. Saw Callie again.

And it was awkward.

Angry and quiet she got. She was good at being angry and quiet and Callie was good at being angry and quiet. Demurely polite? That was another one they could both handle just fine.

But last night she'd gotten flirty. The giddiness of getting back to work and forgetting everything got her pumped up and she got flirty. And then Callie responded. And she kissed her. And hadn't slept. And was tired. And happier than she could ever remember.

And then she'd fallen.

It had just been a second. One scant second after the surgery. Alex and Kepner were looking at her with pride and respect and she'd saved a kid and was on the post-surgery high and she'd spun on her right heel and taken a step with her left and crashed to the ground.

Because she didn't have a left foot. Her leg ended well above where her knee had been and it was sweaty and itchy in the socket and she put all her weight on the wrong part of it and there hadn't been a beautifully engineered leg of muscles and tendons and bones to correct a minor mistake and she'd smacked against the floor—seeing stars and jarring her wrists.

She didn't have a foot. She didn't even care that people were staring and Alex was panicking and rushing them all out of the room. She didn't have a foot. She'd just gone and fallen. She could see her arms windmilling in her head. The look on that weird intern's face as she fell. Her mouth hung open and forming a big "O."

Alex ran up and gently touched her. Terrified she'd hurt herself. Like a fall could hurt. Sure. Falling from a plane and getting ripped up and breaking your leg? Ouch. Falling over in the OR because you didn't have a foot? Not so ouch. She'd fallen so many times over the last month she'd become an expert. She could write books on technique and probably train stuntmen.

She flipped over and saw Alex's face. His concern. Over a fall and she laughed right in his face. He grinned when she explained. Didn't look at her like she was cracked or like he was secretly worried. Just smiled. Because it was ridiculous. She'd fallen from **a plane** and he'd freaked out over a stumble in the OR.

He helped her up and kept his arm around her torso until they were back in the scrub room where her cane rested against the wall. As soon as the cane was in sight his hand dropped down to his side. It was abrupt and obvious and it made it all the funnier. But she bit back the laughter this time.

This was how it was going to be from now on. Everyone waiting for her to break and walking on eggshells. A little annoying because hello, survived a plane crash and that usually means one is kind of awesome and fairly impervious. But the looks. It was going to be worth it for the looks on their faces when she didn't cry or get mad or freak out.

She was still Arizona Robbins. A little of her had been scooped out but the rest of her was settling—easing into place and filling the hole the loss had created. She wouldn't be the same. She couldn't be. Old Arizona wouldn't be breathless walking from one floor to the next and old Arizona could jog. New Arizona needed a cane and sometimes needed to stretch. But she was still herself in there. And they didn't know it.

Not yet.

"You gonna stand there staring or you gonna talk to the parents," Alex asked gruffly—swiftly slipping back into place just like the rest of the world around her.

"I am," she said. She scooped up her cane and made it to the door. Pausing briefly to wonder whether she should ask Alex not to say anything to Callie. Her wife was being protective and awkward. The former since forever and the latter since last night. She'd probably try to hunt down everyone who'd seen the fall and make them swear a blood oath of silence.

It wasn't necessary. A month ago she'd be right there next to Callie. Now she was still thinking about that intern's face and trying not to giggle.

She didn't need to tell Callie. Callie would hear or she wouldn't and Arizona found she didn't care. Not what they thought and not even how Callie might react. She hobbled down the hall, the movement after hours on her feet making the whole lower half of her body protest due to fatigue.

She'd kissed Callie. She'd performed surgery. She'd busted Karev's balls. Everything was shifting. Not just in her but all around her. She'd forgotten that. After Tim died the world had changed and she had never thought it would get better. It would just forever be dark and miserable.

But day by day things returned to normal—only a little different. And it was happening again. She'd kissed Callie and the world righted itself.


	11. Gossip Monger

Title: Gossip Monger

Author: Maggiemerc

Rating: PG

Characters: Callie/Arizona

Spoilers: Season Nine through Episode Eight.

Disclaimer: I do not own them but I do try to make them just as miserable as canon.

Summary: Arizona sneaks away for a nap. Callie finds her.

Author's Note: A little Calzona goodness for a Calzona-free episode.

**Gossip Monger**

Four days back and Arizona was getting into a routine. After spending the last three evenings in her wheelchair too tired even to manage crutches she'd come to the conclusion that trying to act exactly as she had before wouldn't work out. She couldn't run from Peds to the Pit any more and it would be a while before she could manage anything over a four hour procedure—and really four hours was pushing it too.

If she wasn't careful she was going to be stuck doing appies and procedures on tiny babies for the rest of her career.

But the bright side was that after that first day no one was quite so wary around her at work. Nurses treated her as usual. So did Alex—not even bothering to offer to let her scrub in on his procedures and just letting her know that Yang was handling some cardio peds cases instead of asking if she wanted them. She'd been thrown back to the wolves—so to speak and she couldn't quite figure out if that was fantastic or annoying.

The only thing she did know was she was exhausted and her whole body ached. It was like she'd been running a marathon every single day. Callie had to have noticed but after pushing Arizona to come back to work she probably wasn't going to push her to take a little step back. And Arizona would smack her with her cane if she tried.

Instead on her fourth day Arizona scheduled herself for an hour lunch at midday. Used to she'd catch lunch whenever—the only scheduling being to make sure she saw her wife and/or Sofia. Now she needed the break so she could go into a room and take off her prosthetic and rest her legs.

So she did just that. Avoiding the attending lounge and the usual conference rooms she made her way to a fifth floor on call room that rarely saw use by anyone in surgery. It was too far out of the way for the interns to use it for rest and the residents and attendings avoided it because it still had the cheap old beds and a busted couch that could get to third base if you sat on it wrong.

Fortunately Arizona knew exactly how to set her weight on it to avoid fondling via spring. She was getting good at knowing her body and how to settle her weight. It used to be unconscious but with a prosthetic she had to retrain everything and sometimes make very conscious demands of her body.

She hitched up the leg of her scrubs—now a size bigger to hide the belt for her socket—and pulled her leg and socket off. Cool air hit the sock and sweaty skin beneath and she sighed loudly.

She would just rest for a little bit.

She hung her legs off the couch armrest and laid back on the center cushion. An errant spring poked the back of her head but if she twisted her neck just so she could almost get her head to rest on the spring instead of be poked by it.

She closed her eyes for a second and just enjoyed the peace. Yeah, her stomach was rumbling and there was a vague sense of disappointment in herself for even needing the break, but the break itself was so nice she could push that aside and just enjoy.

Until someone ruined it by opening the door. She sat up on her elbows and reached out out of reflex to cover her residual limb, but paused when she saw the stricken Callie in the door clutching a salad from the cafeteria and a bottle of green tea.

"Oh," she said, "Sorry I was just—" She held up the food as explanation. Her dark eyes were wide still with shock and a mix of shame that she seemed to carry half the time she looked at Arizona. But she wasn't really looking at Arizona. Ostensibly her eyes were focused on Arizona's face but she was trying so hard not to look elsewhere—like at her legs—that she was more looking **through** Arizona.

She motioned at the prosthetic lying on the floor. "I was just taking a break."

To anyone else it would have been a dreaded admission of weakness. She would have felt miserable the rest of the day and probably taken it out on Callie when she got home. But it **was** Callie standing across from her and she was still so nervous there in the doorway.

"My, uh, cushion isn't too comfortable though." She nodded to the spot where she'd been resting her head.

Callie seemed to think about it a moment before shutting the door and coming over. She motioned to the same spot and Arizona sat up enough for Callie to sit down, then let her head settle in Callie's lap.

Callie fidgeted though. That spring probably not nearly as comfortable under her ass as it had been under Arizona's head. "Oh this is that creepy couch," she muttered.

Arizona just smiled and closed her eyes again.

"Did you eat lunch yet?"

"I'll catch something later."

"We could share. My salad is—"

Arizona patted her knee. "It's fine. Really."

The silence that spread between them was almost companionable after that. Callie ate her salad and would periodically chew abnormally slowly, like she was trying to make the process quieter, and Arizona kept her eyes closed and enjoyed the feel of the firm thigh she was using as a pillow. Her thumb traced nonsensical patterns over the fabric covering Callie's knee.

It was peaceful.

"How's the plan for Derek's hand going?" Callie snorted and Arizona cracked open one eye to peek up at her. "Not good?"

"He's on a rampage trying to shut down Meredith's nerve recruitment thing."

"The sisters."

"The sisters. Which I don't even get. I mean, Aria and I aren't the Wonder Twins or anything but if I needed her nerve to operate? You'd bet your ass I'd call her."

Arizona frowned. She wasn't crazy about Aria. She'd met her once, talked on the phone with her only a handful of times and the woman couldn't even figure out a way to make it to their wedding to see her little sister walk down the aisle. But she wasn't about to tell Callie her sister was a jerk.

"Though it has been fun watching that weird intern squirm. Which has been happening a lot."

"Weird intern?"

"That one that was on Alex's service the other day."

Arizona scowled. The chair stalker. If she had one nemesis in the hospital it'd be that intern.

Okay, maybe not nemesis, but she was still excited about having her on her service eventually so she could rag on her for hours. It was one of those things she looked forward to, like going home and sitting on the couch with Sofia tucked between her and Callie.

"Not your favorite," Callie observed.

"She stalked me with a chair. Probably because Alex told her to, which is sweet, but still. Do you have any idea how creepy it is to be quietly shadowed by an intern with a chair?"

"None," Callie said with a laugh. She set her half eaten salad on Arizona's chest. "Finish this for me?"

Arizona speared a huge mess of dressing and nuts and berries and what looked like chicken and shoved it in her mouth. "It's very creepy."

"Your mouth is full."

"She was always just **there** and with those big doe eyes? Like a giant baby."

"That Karev has probably slept with repeatedly."

Arizona pointed the fork at Callie, "Not recently though. He's been very adult lately." The salad was really good. Good enough that she had to sit up so she could access it easier. Callie helped her by supporting her elbow but then let her hands drop to the wrapper on the bottle of tea. "Did you know he's buying Meredith's house?"

"I did. Did you know Meredith is pregnant?"

She chewed thoughtfully. Paused. "Wait. I thought she had some…issues."

"I mean, it could be a fluke. But Weirdo fielded a call from an OBGYN about an ultrasound."

"That could be cancer for all we know. Some sort of uterine canc…she's pregnant." Who knew a plane crash had such restorative powers on the uterus.

"I figure we confirm by taking her out for drinks. If she goes for the water. Bam."

"Yeah, but I'm not really crazy about doing drinks with Meredith Grey. About all we have in common is a really unpleasant four day camping trip." There was a little sneaky mandarin orange under some lettuce and she popped it into her mouth. The fruit exploded all tastily on her tongue. But now she was thirsty. She set aside the savaged salad and motioned to the tea which Callie promptly handed her. "But we've got the bridesmaid thingy for Bailey coming up right?"

Callie raised an eyebrow. "Bridesmaid thingy?"

"Like a luncheon or something with her mother. She called the house last week about it."

"Bailey or her mother."

"Mother."

Her wife shuddered, "I have a sneakin' suspicion Bailey has no idea there's a pre-wedding gathering."

"But bright side, it will probably be classy and everyone will have a nice light wine or mimosa and we can spy on Grey without having to buy her drinks."

Callie didn't look so convinced, "Is there really a lot of drinking at bridesmaid luncheons?"

Arizona had no idea. She usually wasn't invited to those. Something about sleeping with the bride/old friend that made people uncomfortable. She handed the now empty tea bottle back to Callie and grabbed her prosthetic. Her hour was nearly up and it would take her a good five minutes to get back to Peds.

"There'd better be alcohol. I don't think I can stand grumpy Bailey, awkward Grey and a whole mess of Bailey's family."

"You can skip it and blame Sofia."

"And leave you to the wolves?" The socket settled into place and she leaned back so she could kiss Callie on the lips. "Not a chance."

####

Callie watched Arizona leave the room and then let out all the air she'd stored up in her lungs. She'd been half holding her breath since coming into the room—terrified of who she'd find on the couch. Again it wasn't the scary empty thing. Again it was sort of her wife.

And she hadn't even hid her legs from her. Not that she ever really did. For a while all she COULD do was throw her condition in Callie's face. But she'd been so very blasé and matter of fact there on the couch. And jokey and gossipy. She's even mentioned the crash without getting terrifyingly dark.

She stood up and turned around to briefly eye the very unpleasant spring that had been digging into her ass for twenty minutes.

Arizona had just invited her to sit. And part of her was afraid it was a passive aggressive punishment thing, but she hadn't acted super passive aggressive. She'd lightly stroked Callie's knee and seemed to just enjoy her company.

She chucked the salad and drink and pulled the other half of her sandwich out of her pocket. She'd scarfed part of it down in the elevator on her way up. Arizona hadn't even suspected her being there on purpose. Just assumed Callie was sneaking into the rarely used on-call room for lunch.

Which she never did. So her wife still wasn't her wife, because old Arizona would have noticed that. But she wasn't scary either.

She was someone Callie looked forward to seeing. And one day she'd be that woman Callie missed more than Mark.


	12. Horny and Hating It

Title: Horny And Hating It

Author: Maggiemerc

Rating: M for mildly saucy thoughts.

Characters: Callie/Arizona

Spoilers: Season Nine through Episode Nine.

Disclaimer: I do not own them but I do try to make them just as miserable as canon. But I'd also make them sex it up without long shots from a window.

Summary: Arizona and Callie try to fall asleep.

Author's Note: So the next few in this series won't be post-eps as much as post-scenes. First up is post-bedroom chat scene.

**Horny And Hating It**

She didn't get that whole "itch to touch" thing until that **exact** moment. Her fingers usually didn't itch. Her whole body with the chicken pox? That was itching. Touching someone. That was just **need**.

But Arizona had turned onto her side and the little smile she'd had when the lights were on had twisted into a frown and she'd stared blankly at nothing and Callie had itched to touch her. Itching was a compulsion. Something so irresistible people hurt themselves in an effort to satisfy. That's what she'd been compelled to do. To reach out and pull Arizona into her arms. She'd brush a few fallen strands of hair out of her face and tell her how much she loved her and how beautiful she was and Arizona would get it. She wouldn't flip over and look all shattered as soon as she thought Callie wasn't watching. She'd actually hear Callie and believe her.

And then they'd make love. And it wouldn't be awkward. Arizona wouldn't cry. Callie wouldn't cry. They wouldn't have to start slow or spend precious time rediscovering each others' bodies. They'd just slide into one another like nothing at all had changed.

But Callie **couldn't** touch her wife. As soon as she'd reach out Arizona would flinch. That righteous and near constant anger at Callie would flare and they'd be three steps back again. Not even talking as they went to bed. Or smiling.

God, Arizona had smiled and Callie had wanted nothing more than to lean in and kiss all the stupid fear right out of the woman.

Why couldn't Arizona just **get** that Callie loved her? Why couldn't she see how gorgeous she was—or at least trust Callie to tell her the truth?

Why couldn't she just…trust Callie at all?

She flipped over on her back and folded her hands across her stomach.

That was the problem wasn't it? Arizona still didn't trust Callie. Callie had promised to save her leg and she'd failed and now her wife, the only person in the world she could ever imagine being with forever, didn't trust her.

Hell she could barely even listen to her! Callie would have given up a limb of her own in that moment to have her wife finally understand her again. She missed that maybe even more than the sex.

**Maybe**.

She was really horny.

####

Callie's muscles always seemed to dance beneath her touch. Her hands would roam over that perfect skin and she'd feel the muscles jump and coil and relax. All because Arizona touched her just the right way.

It made Callie addictive. Even when Arizona wasn't sure about an actual relationship or a commitment or whatever she was positive she could sleep with Callie Torres the rest of her life and never get tired of her.

Next to her leg Callie moving against her and being oh so vocal with her sighs and giggles and screams was what Arizona missed the most. She didn't just miss sex. She missed sex with Callie, who moved for her like a well-tuned instrument. They could be furious with each other on any matter of things, but they'd fall against one another and lips would caress lips and fingers would slide into warm, dark places and everything was okay. It was a salve.

Too bad her wife could barely touch her.

Callie said she was beautiful and she'd looked at her so lovingly that Arizona had almost felt it. It was that smile and that little sarcastic "you know better" tone, but mainly the smile. Callie had a smile that glowed and the way her eyes studied Arizona while she smiled—like it was all just for her. It was magic. Then she'd leaned in just for a peck on the cheek.

There'd been something in the moment. Arizona had **felt** something in the moment but Callie had done little more than brush her lips against Arizona's cheek and the moment had dissolved.

And it was Callie doing the dissolving.

It was easy for Arizona to get. A lot had changed but she could still read Callie pretty well, and her wife just wasn't there. She wasn't ready to be attracted to Arizona again. Smiling maternally like she did at Sofia and being so very chaste. Callie showed her love. She expressed it with a raw sensuality that could turn Arizona to liquid in a heart beat. She didn't hold back. She **never** held back. A kiss on the cheek was supposed to be a precursor to something beautiful. Not an end to the night.

Callie told her she wasn't dumpy. That she was beautiful. But Callie couldn't even touch her. What was gorgeous about a woman who couldn't even muster lust in her own wife?

Behind her Callie's breathing slowed as she fell asleep. Used to she would have curled up against Arizona with her arms wrapped around her waist and the two of them sharing a pillow. Instead Callie slept like a mummy on her side of the bed and Arizona curled up into a tight little ball on her side of the bed.

All she wanted to turn over and find Callie watching her. Then she'd whisper that she wasn't so fragile and Callie would tell her she was too beautiful and she'd pull Arizona close and they'd kiss languidly and pity wouldn't flicker on Callie's face when she undressed her and Arizona wouldn't struggle not to vomit from all the nerves. Callie would then let her hands roam all over Arizona as she dipped to kiss her neck and her fingers wouldn't pause as they ran over her thighs and the sensation wouldn't terrify Arizona and they'd be just Callie and Arizona again and everything would be okay.

But Callie was asleep and Arizona was left feeling lumpy and dumpy and incredibly horny.


	13. Five Months

Title: Five Months

Author: Maggiemerc

Rating: T

Characters: Callie/Arizona

Spoilers: Season Nine through Episode Nine.

Disclaimer: I do not own them but I do try to make them just as miserable as canon. But I'd also make them sex it up without long shots from a window.

Summary: Callie and Arizona are in their red dresses and in the car and on the way to Bailey's wedding.

Author's Note: They still have a lot to process but I'm trying to take baby steps so I don't outstep the narrative on tv. Sorry. :(

**Five Months**

Five months.

Arizona did the mental math. The last time they'd slept together had been the night before Nick's arrival. Callie had tried to paint her nails and it had ended in sexy wrestling which had quickly turned into just plain sex.

Five months ago.

No. Five months. Three weeks. Six days. Almost six months ago. Either Callie had slept with someone while Arizona was laid up in the hospital or she was rounding down to keep her libido in check.

Which…made sense knowing Callie. Her wife's sexual appetite was voracious. Or had been. Five months, three weeks and six days before. Not so voracious after having to deal with a sick wife and a dead best friend and then having to carry said sick wife, and clean up her pee, and hold her soaked and sweating body after a bad reaction to meds and watch her fall so many times it was a wonder she wasn't a walking bruise.

That made things unsexy.

Marriages broke up over unsexy amputations like Arizona's. She'd seen it half a dozen times growing up and watching it another half dozen more during her residency. And Callie…Callie knew just how fragile a relationship became after many amputations. For every one that saved a life and left a person happy and healed there was another like Arizona's.

Arizona had never voiced her suspicions, but there they'd always been beneath the surface. That thought that Callie wasn't there out of love, but out of duty.

Yet…she wanted to still sleep with Arizona? She'd counted the days since they'd last been that close and she'd waited and she'd hated Arizona's prosthetic. Not because it turned Arizona into a monster, but because, apparently, it was some sort of giant chastity belt.

Not far off. At least the old one with the giant tan belt around her middle that looked like Spanx but were even **less** flattering.

Callie was sitting next to her nervously tapping her fingers on the wheel and waiting for the light to change from red to green. She was most definitely **not** looking at Arizona. Not after the big speech about sex and stupid legs and Arizona's need to just get over it.

"Callie?"

Her wife didn't even bother to hide her wince. "I was…out of line…and stupid…and I had coffee. A lot of coffee and—"

"It's been more than five months."

Her fingers slipped on the wheel.

"Five months, three weeks and six days."

"I rounded down," she said immediately. Her eyes flickered from the light to Arizona and back again.

"I figured." Arizona didn't bother hiding her own wry smile. Callie had rounded down! She hadn't slept with someone or had some super erotic and memorable dream or fudged things. She'd rounded down. "I…" She wanted to say 'I miss sex too,' but the words refused to come out. Instead it was her heart leaping into her throat and shame and embarrassment flooding her system.

How could she tell Callie she wanted sex? How did she have the right? How did she have the…God she didn't even have a leg! She was this gross, dumpy thing in flats who needed a **cane** just to walk down a hallway.

The light turned green and Callie accelerated. Her right leg pressing the gas. At least they didn't have a standard. Then Arizona would need a stick or something just to take the car to the store. Which was one of many reasons the death trap known as Callie's Thunderbird was still bedecked in a car cover gathering dust in their second parking space.

They came to another red light. Callie smoothly pressed down on the brake. The car idled. "Can you believe we're bridesmaids?"

"Can you believe Grey's her third?"

Callie shook her head. The light turned green. "If you'd told me three years ago I'd be on a first name basis with Meredith Grey or that I'd **ever** be a bridesmaid in a wedding with her again—"

"When were you before?"

"Cristina. Burke."

"That went well."

Callie shrugged. "It was awful at the time, but in retrospect it would have been a massive mistake of a marriage. That way he kind of helped her."

"How is leaving someone at the altar helpful in the least?"

"She's so pissed at Burke she doesn't have time to be sad. I think anger makes it hurt a little less."

Hating your wife because you didn't have a leg didn't lessen the pain that came every night.

"I always kind of wished that had happened to me," Callie mused.

Before the horror of her statement could quite sink into Arizona's head Callie turned all panicked, "With George," she practically shouted, her voice ringing in the confines of the car. "I wish that had happened with George. You know, before we got married in Vegas and then he cheated on me and made me feel about two feet tall."

Another red light. Callie nervously looked at Arizona and Arizona stared back. She wondered if Callie understood everything. "I'm sorry," she said and it was a sentence with multiple meanings. How many did Callie catch?

"I wouldn't have traded our wedding for anything in the world," Callie said softly.

Maybe Callie was with her out of duty. Maybe she was miserable. Maybe she even hated Arizona sometimes as much as Arizona had hated her.

But Calliope Torres loved her too. Because at the end of the day she'd do it all over again. The car accident and Africa and sorbet and the plane crash and Arizona's left leg. She'd live every excruciating moment so they could be stuck in the car at a red light smiling awkwardly at each other.

Five months, three weeks and six days.

Arizona was positive she wouldn't make it to six months. Not when Callie smiled wistfully as the light turned green.


	14. Thank You

**Title**: Thank You

**Author**: Maggiemerc

**Rating**: T

**Characters**: Callie/Arizona

**Spoilers**: Season Nine through Episode Eleven.

**Disclaimer**: I do not own them but I do try to make them just as miserable as canon. But I'd also make them sex it up without long shots from a window.

**Summary**: Callie and Arizona walk home from dinner and then get ready for bed.

**Author's Note**: The summaries for these ficlets are drier than this glass of red I had tonight guys. Sorry about that. :/

**Thank You**

They all parted ways downstairs. A glowing Meredith, a pleased Derek and a loopy Cristina waved goodbye from the car stand. Arizona looped her arm through Callie's and leaned on her, soaking up her warmth through her coat and taking the pressure of her left leg, which was starting to itch again below the knee.

"I had a good time tonight," she confessed.

She hadn't planned on having a good time. She'd dreaded the dinner as soon as Callie suggested it-images of an inert and pale Mark and her own bone protruding obscenely through her leg were the first things she'd seen. Then the cries that haunted her, her own cries on the forest floor, but somehow disassociated from herself.

Yet Callie had gotten that adorable look in her eye and Arizona had to admit that seeing the queasy expression on Derek's face had inspired her to say yes. She kind of enjoyed seeing the way her wife rubbed him in all the wrong ways. Because even though he and Callie went together like ice cream and pickles they somehow still…fit. Each taking up that massive hole left by Mark. Filling a much need purpose in each other's lives. Derek made Callie confident with his trust and she kept him there on the ground with the rest of the mortals.

The chance of seeing Callie bounce off Derek at a dinner with his wife and Cristina had almost made it worth the discomfort of spending a few hours with that particular group.

Callie covered Arizona's hand with her own and tilted her head, so it rested briefly against hers. "I did too. You know after the awkwardness that was most of dinner."

"I have never experienced anything more awkward."

"Even that time I outed you to the entire hospital with a candid of the two of us?"

Yeah, that **had** been bad. Not because Arizona was ashamed of her sexuality, but because she tended to be a low key person and having the entire hospital find out she was seeing Callie because of a photo popping up in the middle of her powerpoint had been-

"Okay, that was a little awkward. And the bit where you mentioned sleeping with Alex made it worse in retrospect, but nope, tonight was officially the most awkward experience in my life."

Her wife laughed, the sound ringing off the buildings around them and bouncing right back into Arizona, making her feel almost as loopy as Yang had looked towards the end of dinner.

"I'm glad I could help," Callie said.

Arizona snuggled closer and Callie seemed to grow stronger. Like she was holding Arizona up rather than just standing close. It wasn't a conscious thing on her part either. Arizona glanced up and saw Callie looking straight ahead, that gorgeous smile gracing her lips, her head far from thoughts of Arizona's leg.

She seemed to sense she was being stared at though. She looked down at. "What," she started to ask. But Arizona wouldn't let her. She leaned up into an open mouth kiss, her tongue sweeping into Callie's mouth almost of its own accord. Maybe it was the champagne or the fifteen million dollars or standing for five straight hours in the OR.

No, it was Callie. A salve to her soul. She'd thought it before but in that moment it was never truer. Callie had saved her. And then, she'd pulled the worst and most awkward dinner of Arizona's life out of a tailspin and forced them all through sheer willpower to realize how good things could be—how good they had to be, and Arizona loved her for it.

They paused right there on the sidewalk, turning into each other and deepening the kiss. Callie's hands held Arizona's face so gently and she grabbed whole bunches of fabric at Callie's waist. A heat she desperately missed uncoiled in the pit of her and she found herself pushing Callie back until she pressed against a street sign. She almost lost her balance, but Callie held her up and let her disappear into the embrace, supporting her in every way fathomable.

She couldn't quite control it even if she wanted to. They'd been building, slowly, towards the intimacy they'd once shared. Every kiss now was more ardent than the one before. Every touch more impassioned-

"GET A ROOM!" They broke apart just in time to see Derek's car zoom by with Cristina hanging out the window in the back and cackling at them.

Arizona looked up at Callie and Callie looked down at Arizona and they both burst out laughing. She sagged against her wife's shoulder and Callie ran a hand through her hair before dropping a kiss on top of her head. "She seems perky," she said into Arizona's hair.

"Who knew it only took two glasses of champagne to bring out fun Cristina?"

"Hm," Callie murmured. Her arms encircled Arizona's waist. Arizona let herself rest against her. She wouldn't have before. Not for a long time. She'd always been the one holding Callie up and she'd **liked** that about them. Callie would throw an arm over her shoulder and Arizona would support her, but she couldn't do that anymore. She didn't have the strength to, and she might never.

So she had to lean against Callie, and let **her** bear the weight. Callie did happily too. She didn't comment. Just held Arizona and said nothing—content to stand on the sidewalk and let the wind run up the street and buffet against her back.

"Thank you."

Callie squeezed her tight but still said nothing. Because they didn't need speeches or to endlessly process the minutiae of their lives. Sometimes words of whispered thanks on a chilly street after a comfortable kiss was all that was necessary.

They made their way home, and not a moment too soon. Arizona was barely able to walk as they stepped off the elevator. Five hours straight on her feet in the OR and then walking to dinner and back had her exhausted and sore all over. Her left leg was the worst. The pain came and went. It had gotten better since she'd gone back to work but now it was back to aching again and forcing her to limp heavily. Callie didn't say anything, just tucked her in close and half carried her down the hall.

Claudia, with her Burt-like eyebrows and penchant for tidying up grinned when she saw them, filling them in on the events at home. Arizona only smiled politely and shuffled to their bedroom where she flopped down onto the bed and resisted the groan of relief that bubbled up from her throat.

In the other room Callie chatted amicably with the babysitter then she ducked into Sofia's room, wordlessly giving Arizona the privacy she needed to remove her leg and massage the sore muscles.

Yes, things had changed in little ways since Bailey's wedding. They were more affectionate but without the awkwardness and Callie no longer hid her hungry gaze. She seemed to have found her patience too, refusing to tease or get short with Arizona when she mentioned her leg.

And she…she avoided being in the room when Arizona took it off.

It was such a tiny thing. She didn't apologize for all the times she'd stared almost garishly. Nor did she avert her eyes when Arizona caught her sneaking a glance, but she was…polite about it all now. Respectful of Arizona. So every night and every morning she found somewhere else to be while Arizona dealt with it.

When she finally came back in she was carrying half a bottle of rose they'd started a few days earlier and two glasses. Arizona raised an eyebrow, "If I didn't know better I'd think you were trying to get me drunk."

Callie smiled shyly and sat on the edge of the bed, pouring a glass and handing it to her. "We need to finish the bottle and I need to toast you."

"Me?"

Her wife had this smile. This one very particular smile. She'd smile at Arizona and she would feel like she could take on nearly anything. It was like Callie's smile could give her…superpowers or something. And she let it loose then before softly saying, "Yeah, you goof."

She stared down at the pink wine in her glass. "Why?"

"Because you stood in the OR for five hours today."

"Didn't we toast that at dinner?"

"Mh hm, but we got sidetracked by babies and sexting."

She held her own glass up and Arizona reluctantly tore her eyes away from her wine to look at Callie. There were unshed tears in her eyes, the happy sad ones that she was sure would never quite go away now with Mark gone, but they seemed, maybe, a little happier than sad this time.

Quietly they brought their glasses up. The edges brushed against each other—the only sound in the room. Callie just smiled and Arizona could only smile back. Their eyes never left one another as they brought the glasses to their lips. Cool wine ran across her tongue, a burst of fruitiness on her tastebuds.

She leaned forward almost imperceptibly, but Callie noticed and crossed the rest of the distance, kissing her softly. They parted sweetly. Each woman studying the other—gauging them for a reaction. Callie must have seen something because she grinned and darted forward to kiss Arizona's cheek before hopping off the bed and disappearing into the bathroom.

Arizona gulped down the rest of her wine and buried herself in the sheets, lying flat on her back and staring at the ceiling. Her leg burned a little just below the knee and she shut her eyes, choosing instead to think of Callie kissing her. That had been nice.

The mattress dipped as Callie got back into bed and the room grew dark when Callie flicked the lights off.

"You okay," she asked.

"Yeah."

And she was. Things bothered her of course. The pain in her missing leg still flared up. Sometimes waking her in the middle of the night, or in this instance, itching fiercly and keeping her from getting comfortable. But she was alive. And she had the most perfect wife in creation, and a beautiful daughter and, apparently, fifteen million dollars.

"What do you think they're going to name the baby," she asked into the darkness.

"Mark if it's a boy. Lexie if it's a girl," Callie muttered.

Arizona didn't even need to look over to know her wife's eyes were closed. She always had this tone to her voice when they were.

"Really?"

"How should I know?"

"You know we're kind of that kid's aunt."

"How do you figure?"

"Mark always called Zola his niece and Sofia's kind of Derek's niece right?"

"Yeah."

"So we're kind of aunts."

"Mark **would** want us to make sure that kid didn't get too much of Derek's ego."

She snorted, "From the man who trained Jackson Avery. I'm surprised that guy's head fit in the OR today."

"He was just showing off."

"I wanted to thump him."

Callie rolled over and gave Arizona a quick squeeze around the middle. "Go to sleep. You'll feel less violent in the morning."

"I'm rich now Callie. I could pay to have him kicked off a cliff."

"I'll let him know tomorrow." Lips pressed against her shoulder in the darkness. "Now go to sleep."

Arizona closed her eyes. She tried to sleep then. She really did. Her day had been so good and Callie had been so good. There was this one weight that had sat on her shoulder since the crash and it was finally lifted.

But her leg was still itching.

And it wasn't even there.


	15. Out of Love

**Title**: Out of Love

**Author**: Maggiemerc

**Rating**: T

**Characters**: Callie/Arizona

**Spoilers**: Season Nine through Episode Twenty-Four.

**Disclaimer**: I do not own them but I do try to make them just as miserable as canon. But I'd also make them sex it up without long shots from a window.

**Summary**: Callie and Arizona return home after the storm.

**Author's Note: **The final vignette for my season 9 series. Check out Tumblr if you're curious about the status of Causal Fallacy and Hamilton Gregg, and if you're looking for something waaaay less angsty you should read my OUAT series. THERE ARE DRAGONS. AND NO LAUREN BOSWELL.

**Out of Love**

She never set out to fall in love. Falling in love required commitment-devotion-she knew she wasn't capable of. She was a badass surgeon flying from case to case and saving lives and offering a bright smile and the lovers she took were moments of peace. They were escapes from tiny coffins and dead brothers and damn it.

Damn it, she never set out to fall in love.

But then this orthopedic surgeon ran into a bathroom while trying to hide her tears and she'd heard all about the woman. She was in awe of her and the way she'd been assaulted by the world and the way she'd stood strong in spite of it all. So she gave chase and she offered her own opinion. She uttered words of comfort and wonder and she pressed her lips to hers.

And then. Then she was falling in love and there wasn't a net and there weren't hand holds to grab and halt her fall. There was only the mad descent into a life she'd never planned and never wanted and loved despite it.

But one day.

One day she fell again. Her stomach was in her throat and her body was being tossed through the air and her leg was striking metal and all of her was shattering.

Shattered.

She died.

Out there in the woods she **died**. What she loved and what she hated and what she needed and what she could live without all shifted. She was no longer one woman. She was another. Reborn on an operating table and minus a limb.

She'd never set out to fall in love, but she had. Then…then she found herself out of love and adrift. She pulled one way. The woman she loved pulled another.

They fought for each other.

They fought for those two idealists who had said their vows in a garden. Fought for the lovers that faced a gunman and a car crash and the betrayal wrought by an entire freaking continent.

They fought.

But neither of them were those women.

She'd changed.

Callie changed. The Callie who loved was lost and in her place there was the fighter.

Callie sacrificed **everything** for love. She sacrificed part of Arizona for it.

And Arizona.

Arizona had never wanted love in the first place.

####

The sun rose on a world she abhorred. Branches and leaves lay in puddles on the ground and people stumbled into the light and pulled the remnants of the storm off their cars.

They got in.

They drove away.

Arizona stood there. Her leg was tired and all her weight was on her good leg and the arm she gripped the window seal with. She'd come home. She and Callie both had. They'd put Sofia in her bed and they'd shared a breakfast in silence.

Then Callie had cried and Arizona had only watched.

How could you comfort someone when you were the source of their pain?

Their roles had been reversed.

Arizona had spent a year trying to love her wife again when all she could feel was the anger and she'd finally found a way to love her only to hurt her so severely because the lights went out and a seductive blond told her it was all okay. Now Callie hated **her**. Callie felt betrayed by **her**. She was the one ruining them and Callie was the one searching for the strength to love again.

Her leg wobbled so she limped to the couch and took off her pants and removed her prosthetic. She let it fall on its side and she rolled onto her back and lifted her thigh so the sunlight caught the end of it.

"It all comes back to the leg." Callie's words were in her head. Callie's horror.

"The leg."

Like it was just a piece of meat.

Like it was just an impetus to life.

Like it was nothing.

That leg had been **her's**. It held her up when she stood on the tarmac and watched them wheel her brother's body off the plane. It held her up through twenty hours of surgery. It burned with every mile of the marathon she'd run in college and it had ached when she broke it falling out of a tree as a ten year old. And it had stank in the woods. The sweet rot had pervaded the shelter they'd built from a plane.

She missed the toes that flexed and the knee that cracked and the way Callie used to run her sure, strong hand along the calf.

"The leg."

Callie didn't miss it. Didn't regret its loss.

Callie had chopped it off because Arizona's mind was more important.

And she kept thinking it was okay. Kept thinking **Arizona** was okay. She'd shut her mind to what she'd sacrificed and just made it this-this lump of flesh. Not a loss. Not a devastation. Just "the leg."

The worst part was Arizona wished she could see it the same way. See it as the line between life and death rather than a part of herself. She wished she could see the failure to heal rather than feel her own failure and that of her wife so accutely.

She wished that storm hadn't come and she hadn't taken Lauren in her arms and she hadn't forgotten about betrayal and legs and planes for one moment.

She wished she could stand up, walk into the other room and just tell her wife she loved her.

But she was missing "the leg."

####

The best part about being the one that was always cheated on rather than the one doing the cheating was that Callie was familiar with the coping mechanisms.

The horror had given way to numbness and she was determined to sit in that numb place for as long as humanly possible.

It didn't hurt. There wasn't shock. There wasn't excruciating grief. There was nothing. There was the sun peaking through the crack in the door and the cieling fan overhead and the rise and fall of her own chest.

In the numbness Arizona wasn't the deliverer of everything perfect and everything awful. She wasn't a bitch. She wasn't cruel. In her head Arizona was a woman in the other room and Callie was a woman in **this** room and those were just facts. Easy and quantifiable facts.

Arizona had cheated on her.

Arizona had let some-some **stranger** see all of her while hiding it from Callie. For a little while someone else had understood Arizona more than Callie. Had comprehended every sigh and exhalation and brought her wife to points she'd only just rediscovered herself.

But she was so tired it didn't even hurt.

She'd fought for so long. She'd put aside her feelings and her instincts and she'd **fought** for Arizona.

And Arizona gave up.

So Callie laid on the bed and felt nothing because it was better than feeling something.

Later, and Callie couldn't say how much later, the door swung open and Arizona stood there on her one leg holding herself in the frame of the door with straining arms.

"I love you," she said simply.

Callie rolled over on her side.

"I love you Calliope Torres."

Was Arizona fighting? Was she actually trying to save a marriage she'd baled out of a year before?

"I will always love you."

Was she trying to break through that perfect wall of numbness Callie had built?

She sat up. Wiped at her weary eyes and stared at the woman who looked like the one she'd married.

"Callie…please."

Arizona was trying to be passionate. Trying to be assured. She wobbled on her leg and her arms flexed with the effort of holding herself up.

But mostly.

Mostly Arizona just looked exhausted. Looked as tired and numb as Calie felt.

She tilted her head-hoping maybe she'd see more than just exhaustion in the doorway. Instead she saw that thing that wanted to cut off her leg. She saw that angry creature she dragged into the shower. She saw all the women that had come after she lost her wife in a plane crash.

Arizona's arms slowly gave out and she slumped against the frame of the door and rested her head.

Here they were two strangers pretending to be people they weren't, and they were both so tired and as long as they stayed. As long as they were trying it would only get worse.

Callie twisted her ring on her finger. Saw the glint of Arizona's ring in the sunlight.

She sighed.

Then she said the words. The words that had to be said. Callie had fought for so long that that moment of surrender wasn't devastation. It was peace.

"I want to seperate."

And the woman who had once been her wife sank to the floor. Callie sank back onto the mattress.

And after a little while.

She slept.


End file.
